Stephan Hawkings, Disasters, Wild Cards and Survival of the Human Species

More and more renowned names are offering warnings about man-kind's future on this planet.

See Global warming could make Canada an agricultural powerhouse while the U.S. becomes a dustbowl

or Al Gore: Planetary Triage or False Alarm?

Add a world-renowned physicist to the list -possibly the Einstein of the 21 century

Associated Press is reporting yesterday and today that scientist Stephen Hawking while lecturing in Hong Kong, cautioned that the survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth. 

Hawkings thinks that humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a colony on Mars in the next 40 years. 

"We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system " He added that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.

"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said.  "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of." 

These disaster events, called Wild Cards, are low probability but high impact events that happen quickly, taking most people by surprise

Want to create and predict your own Wild Cards ?

Z-Punkt in Germany offers a Wild Card game where you get the chance to create and suggest future Wild Card events see here

Possible Wild Cards

To give yo a bit of a taste for Wild Cards, below is a list of British Telecom's Wildcards from 2005 and when they might happen ( indicators that they could be happening or have happened --highlighted in red)

WILD CARDS (THAT COULD HAPPEN ALMOST ANYTIME)

• Megavolcano erupts 2005
• Cumbre Vieha collapses, megatsunami wipes out dozens of cities 2005
• Asteroid or comet hits earth 2005 ( N.B. Meteoroid hit Norway last week )
• Massive solar flare wipes out life on earth 2005
• Natural evolution of superbug 2005 ( Houseflies Collected in Fast Food Restaurants Found to Carry Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria : June 14, 2006 (L. Macovei, L. Zurek. 2006. Ecology of antibiotic resistance genes: characterization of enterococci from houseflies collected in food settings. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 72. 6: 4028-4035)
• Extraordinary US West Coast Natural Disaster 2005
• First Unambiguous Contact with Extraterrestrial Life -- The Arrival of Ets 2005
• Ice caps melt, Oceans rise one hundred feet 2005
• Mass Migrations 2005
• Another Chernobyl 2005
• Collapse of the United Nations 2005
• Global nuclear war 2005
• Environmental pressure causes evolution of superbug 2005
• Aids or similarly deadly disease mutates and becomes transmittable by air 2005
• Bugs resistant to all known antibiotics 2005 (see US develops lethal new viruses ) & above ( Houseflies Collected in Fast Food Restaurants Found to Carry Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria : June 14, 2006
• Rules Change: Economic and/or Environmental "War Criminals" Are Prosecuted 2005
• Terrorists Go Biological 2005 (see Biologists risk becoming accidental terrorists )
• US Economy Fails or collapse of the dollar 2005 (some PetroStates looking at abandoning US $ and switching to Euros)
• Civil nuclear war 2005
• Global economic collapse causes mass starvation and conflict 2005
• Global civil war 2005
• Space exploration creates superbug 2005
• Civil war between Soviet States Goes Nuclear 2005
• Collapse of World's Fisheries 2005  (see Climate change: The great Atlantic shutdown Shock findings suggest vital Atlantic currents are slowing dramatically.  Will this soon plunge Europe into winter, turn the Amazon into grassland and cause famine in Asia?  15 April 2006 )
• Computer/Chip/Operating System Maker Blackmails Country or World 2005
• End of Intergenerational Solidarity 2005
• Gulf or Jet Stream Shifts Location Permanently 2005
• International Financial Collapse 2005
• Large-scale lengthy disruption of national electrical supply 2005
• Major Break in Alaskan pipeline - Significant ecological damage 2005
• Major Chaos in Africa 2005
• Nuclear Terrorist Attack on United States or Europe 2005
• Rise of an American Dictator 2005
• Social breakdown in US or Europe 2005
• Stock market crash 2005
• Human Cloning Perfected, Human Genetic Engineering Arrives 2005
• Accidental creation of lethal organism during research 2005
• Anti-tech backlash destroys systems chaos and starvation 2005
• Deliberate biotech self-destruct by malicious biotech researcher 2005
• Major genetic engineering accident 2005 (see Biologists risk becoming accidental terrorists )
• Terrorism rises beyond capability of government systems 2005
• Transgenic accident 2005
• Encryption Invalidated 2005 (see Busted! A crisis in cryptography)

  The gold standard of digital security - used to authenticate everything from secure websites for credit card transactions to passwords and digital signatures - lies in tatters 17 December 2005    

• Hackers Blackmail Federal Reserve 2005
• China launches cyberwar against Taiwan 2005
• Virus outbreak kills 100 million people worldwide 2005
• Internet collapse due to security concerns undermining trust 2005
• Strike on urban area by 500m asteroid (below current detection threshold) 2005 ( N.B. Meteoroid hits Norway last week )

• Biotech terrorist attack goes wrong 2010
• Evolved crime destroys human systems 2010
• Global civil war between cybernations 2010
• Hackers wipe out networks, causing chaos and mass starvation 2010
• The hostile arrival of Ets detecting our transmissions 2010
• Viruses become immune to all known treatments 2010
• End of the Nation State 2010
• Foetal Sex Selection Becomes the Norm 2010

• Gulf Stream ceases 2015 (see Climate change: The great Atlantic shutdown Shock findings suggest vital Atlantic currents are slowing dramatically.  Will this soon plunge Europe into winter, turn the Amazon into grassland and cause famine in Asia?  15 April 2006
• Computers and robots become superior to humans 2015
• Self-aware machine intelligence 2015
• Third world exodus destabilises global system 2015
• Computers/Robots think like humans 2015

• Collapse of the sperm count 2020
• Global epidemic with high speed travel and high population density 2020
• Global famine caused by manmade environmental change 2020 (see Climate change: The great Atlantic shutdown Shock findings suggest vital Atlantic currents are slowing dramatically.  Will this soon plunge Europe into winter, turn the Amazon into grassland and cause famine in Asia?  15 April 2006  & Climate change warning over food production The first real-world experiments on the effects of rising carbon dioxide and ozone on key food crops suggest significant drops in yields 26 April 2005
• Hybrid nanotech-organic creatures 2020
• International social collapse - widespread civil conflict 2020
• Major information systems disruption 2020
• Major technology or science research accident 2020
• Rise of a global machine dictator 2020
• Total social breakdown in US or Europe 2020
• Fuel cells replace internal combustion engines 2020
• Life Expectancy Approaches 100 2020

• Megacities cause global epidemic 2025
• Nanotech development by individuals 2025
• Nanotechnology accident 2025
• Networks become conscious and won't co-operate 2025
• Second World Nation Demonstrates Development of Nanotech Weapons 2025

• Elimination by smart machines - terminator 2030
• Nanotechnology war 2030
• Humans access net directly, become an integral part of global information system. 2030
• No-Carbon Economy Worldwide 2030 ( see Faster carbon dioxide emissions will overwhelm capacity of land and ocean to absorb carbon )

• Religious environmentalism destroys environment 2030
• Use of asteroid as weapon of mass destruction 2030

• Methane hydrate nodules evaporate causing runaway global warming 2040 (see Methane Burps: Ticking Time Bomb ) and Alaskan and Siberian permafrost could release a significant amount -500 Gigatons of carbon within century; throws off climate models
• Creation of Star Trek's Borg 2040
• Global electromagnetic communications disrupted for foreseeable future 2040

• Political correctness creates new dark age 2050
• Whole generation unable to effectively read, write, think, and work 2050
• Human genetic engineering creates hostile super-race 2070

Have you spotted any indicators or evidence of any Wild Card above?  post your evidence to the comments section below

© 2005-2006

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

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